William Cowie

App Mania: The Big Business of Downloads

Rewind 20 years or so, to the first salvos of the MAC/Windows war. Microsoft won in part because they welcomed software developers, while Apple didn't care. Jobs then witnessed the truth he now lives by: apps (software) drive hardware sales. This time round, Apple is rolling out the red carpet for software developers and, not coincidentally, winning this platform war.

By entrenching themselves as the standard, they've made it near impossible for latecomers to dethrone them, no matter how much better their product might be.

Is Excessive Speculation in Oil and Commodities Markets Actually Occurring?

Amen, brother - I could not have said it better myself. Speculators make volatility worse, all in the name of liquidity. I'm a libertarian at heart, but in this case some regulation is needed. It may not be perfect, but it's bound to be less imperfect than what we have now...


On Jul 09 06:08 PM SteveK wrote:

> This article is unadulterated bs. There should be a rule that whoever
> buys,sells, owns oil futures MUST register themselves and be in a
> position to put-up full monetary value oil trades and be able to
> take 100% delivery of oil futures they trade! And I don't mean taking
> delivery via a third-party! We need to stop enabling speculator gamblers
> from throwing hordes of money into oil futures, manipulating prices
> via artificial demand/supply machinations, and then rolling-over,
> closing-out, or selling their positions to eliminate taking delivery.
>
>
> These speculators are nothing more than gamblers ... their activities
> have no legitimate bearing on any facet of global demand or supply
> for oil ... and they do nothing but distort prices in the oil marketplace.
> The government should regulate oil traders and eliminate blatant
> speculative activities!

cBeyond: Likely to Lose Even More Money

Cbeyond the product is great (VOIP). Cbeyond the company is dismal. How do I know? We've been a customer for 5 years. Back then the company was well-run. But, as they grew, they hired many people and did not spend the money on training they needed. The result? Rookies servicing clients. We had someone sell us a VPN. So we asked them how to use it. "Go look on the website, I don't know," was the response. We found a competent person, but their internal bureaucracy forbids that person to talk to us, on pain of termination. Needless to say, we'll be part of the churn when our contract is up.

VOIP is no longer cutting edge. It's becoming a commodity, and only those with superior service and reasonable costs will survive. I fear Cbeyond may not be one of them.

Friday Rallies Signal Confidence in Market

Of course, reality can set in on any given Friday...

Columbia Journalism Review performs a thorough audit of what the mainstream business press did (and didn’t) do while the financial crisis was brewing.

Going through the list,it looks like a lot of fluff stuff. Rare as blue diamonds are the critical articles on which journalists so pride themselves...

Pimco's Gross: Looking at the New Capitalism

Obama quote: “I do not stand…with a group of investment firms and hedge funds who decided to hold out for the prospect of an unjustified taxpayer-funded bailout.”

So, is Goldman Sachs not an investment firm? The day Obama tells GS to take a hit of only one dime, that's the day he will start regaining credibility. Until then, just another day of empty rhetoric and our dollars lining Wall Street pockets.

Michael Hiltzik sticks up for the credit card companies: As imprudent borrowers, we've contributed as much to the financial crisis as our imprudent lenders. Or to quote a famous line from the classic comic strip Pogo: "We have met the enemy, and he is us."

Now if the credit card people were to use this on their own management, it might be good. Hey, Mr. Dimon (Chase), you missed your earnings by a penny. Bingo, 25% drop in your pay. And now you have to wait a few years before we restore your pay rate...

UAW's strongarming a better deal out of GM (GM) than bondholders, leveraging their ability to strike, is nothing less than extortion, Senator Bob Corker says. Ok, isn't that what unions do?

Wait till the time comes for the UAW to renegotiate deals with their competitors, because that's what Ford and GM have become. Think they will give GM the same concessions they gave themselves?

Coming soon: a newspaper bailout.

Our (liberal) neighbors next door are already working on it. Their argument: every city "needs" a taxpayer supported newspaper like they "need" a ballet, art, orchestra and blah blah... I retorted that at least the ballet doesn't force their views down my throat, but that (predictably) had no impact at all.

The wheels are already moving in a city near you...

Want a Pension Over $100,000? Be a Government Worker in California

This model is sustainable as long as California contributes more to the Federal budget than any other state. Even with the Federal money coming back to California, they're still paying more than they're getting.

And the zombie banks on Wall Street are only to happy about that... :)


On May 05 01:01 PM Applegator wrote:

> Reported this morning (5/5/09): The #1 source of California State
> and local government revenues for the 1st quarter of 2009 -- federal
> intergovernmental transfers. Lagging behind federal largess were
> sales taxes, income taxes and property taxes.
>
> How "sustainable" is this fiscal model?

Want a Pension Over $100,000? Be a Government Worker in California

Wait a minute. Are these pensions coming out of the Cal budget? I don't think so. From what I've been told, CalPers is a separate entity, and the pensions are the fruit of (a) decades of paying into the fund through deductions and (b) their investment acumen, which over the years has been pretty good. The folks earning these pensions typically have more than 20 years service if my information is correct. If you invested the same amount of money in a good retirement program for that many years, you, too, can be earning that kind of pension, especially if your employer had some form of matching.

Now, if you want to talk about the general compensation level of government employees, that's another (valid) discussion.

New York Fed chairman Stephen Friedman comes under fire for his close ties to Goldman Sachs (GS).

That's because they are. When they want to know what to do, they run to GS. Inevitable answer: feed us first.

The UAW's Chrysler coup is like a scene out of a bad movie.

When, after five years or so, nobody buys Chrysler cars because they are overpriced, how much will be be asked to pay in bailout money to keep those overpaid workers employed and medically covered?

Naked Capitalism wonders why a conflict of interest isn't a conflict of interest when it comes to Goldman Sachs (GS). (previously)

It is amazing that 60 Minutes or someone like that isn't taking this crap to the masses. Most people i speak to are unaware, but when I mention just one or two tidbits, they get very interested to know what's being done with their money.

Paul Krugman on the paradox of pay cuts: "If everyone takes a pay cut, nobody gains a competitive advantage. So there’s no benefit to the economy from lower wages. Meanwhile, the fall in wages can worsen the economy’s problems on other fronts."

Like the Knight and Henrique said.

We need two things to become more competitive globally: a lower currency (making our exports cheaper) or lower wages. Come to think of it, a lower dollar and higher wages would work better for individual Americans. as long as the drop in the dollar is more than the wage increases, we're all ahead. (That's what Japan did back in the day, and what China is trying to do now.)